Making science fun

May 22nd, 2009

Having been a teacher for a short time I have had the chance to experience what its like to try and control a bunch of over 30 kids who don’t want to be controlled. The reason why I am no longer a teacher is because I lacked the assertiveness needed for classroom management. When I went into teaching I always thought that Science lessons should be really fun to do because of all the experiments. I wanted to make the best lesson I could, and during my PGCE year I did. I did all sorts of experiments with my classes. I made flame throwers, exploding bottles, I set my self of fire, we made rainbows in test tubes, sucked eggs into conical flasks, and the children really enjoyed it.

Unfortunately the newly qualified year is nothing like my PGCE, I found I had no time at all to plan and test anything fun and ended up teaching boring lessons. I have great respect for anyone who can manage to engage pupils, get all the marking done and also have any sort of life to call their own.

Anyway I thought I would add some of the experiments I thought were really good. My favourite was the set your teacher on fire. Using a mixture of washing up liquid (10cm3), water (75cm3), and glycerol (4cm3) to bubble methane though, you end up with a column of flammable bubble you can pick up with your hands. Then using a lit splint attached to a metre rule a student can set fire to them. I have also heard of a teacher who blows the ignited bubble towards people. It is best to do this experiment with wet hands to stop your self getting burnt. At low levels this could be just a bit of fun to get the pupils engaged, or at higher levels looking at how the water stops your getting burnt.

I also made a flame thrower using icing sugar. Its a variant of the exploding tin experiment, just a bit more interesting. Using a rubber tube attached to a funnel that is held at an angle pointing at a Bunsen flame. You pour icing sugar down the funnel then blow down the tube; the icing sugar shoots out of the funnel and hits the flame. Because it’s a dust it ignites into a big fire ball. I used it to show energy from food, and talk about waste products.

If you do any of these, please make sure you carry out all health and safety and make sure your school allows it.

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